


Save Me From Myself

by legitimate_salvage (ifinkufreaky)



Category: The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Amos is characteristically uncomplicated about the whole thing, Angst and Porn, Clarissa can't cry, F/M, Sex is so much better, help i keep editing making it angstier, the eXXXpanse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:21:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6956290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/legitimate_salvage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers through Book 3. Five weeks on the Roci, execution or a life sentence once Clarissa gets to Luna, how does she not try to bang him?<br/>Warning: potentially triggering description of choking in the final chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Picks up right after Clarissa's last POV chapter in Abbadon's Gate. ___  


Four weeks left. After Amos had reprogrammed her restraint cuff and started including Clarissa in the ship’s repairs, time had begun moving faster. It was both a blessing and a curse, to fill her last weeks of freedom with satisfying, hard work. Amos made her feel more at ease, treated her like a regular person, mostly. But she couldn’t allow herself to sink into it, made dark jokes about who she had been and the things she had done. Amos laughed at them all. The rest of the crew had started to relax around her, following Amos’ lead. That felt too good too. She didn’t deserve it. She spent the time she wasn’t working or eating back in her bunk, keeping out of their space. Her life was over, theirs would go on. She wouldn’t cry about it; she found she couldn’t anyway. She would just exist until then. Fixing the ship helped.  


Her days moved quickly, but her nights were becoming an exquisite torture. It seemed there were only two choices to think about until she fell asleep: her impending imprisonment and/or death, or the people she shared her days with in the here and now. People who would never be her friends, not really. And yet she craved a connection. If she thought about Holden for too long, the creeping contempt of the old Clarissa and the crushing remorse of all the horrible things she had done to try and destroy him started sneaking back into her mind. So she didn’t think about him for long. Alex was quiet and distant and she didn’t know much about him. Naomi seemed like an amazing person that Clarissa would love to get to know. But then the image of the woman’s swollen face desperate for air crushed in Clarissa’s salvage mech grip flashed in her mind, and she knew that would never happen either.  


And then there was Amos. She knew he was fiercely loyal to his crew, she knew he had been perfectly willing to kill her, and probably still was. But he was also funny, and friendly, and gave her days meaning. She found herself replaying their conversations in her mind each night, just to keep the bad thoughts away until she fell asleep. So she shouldn’t have been surprised, really, when she started dreaming about him. Foggy, intense, shockingly erotic dreams. She woke up remembering standing naked before him, or the feeling of his hands holding her down, or the satisfying ache of him buried inside of her. The dreams left her intensely aroused and deeply sad. She wondered if she would ever even see a penis again.  


And so her days started to feel tortured as well. She’d only barely re-orient herself to the here-and-now and the real Amos would be standing at her door, holding a coffee and a tool belt and calling her “Peaches” with that easy smile. Memories of intense moments from her dreams would hit her unexpectedly when he turned a certain way, or looked at her for too long… it became harder and harder for her to keep her mind under control.  


He was like a magnet, like a gravity well. She felt sucked toward him when he was in the room, her own private Coriolis effect. She found herself staring at the bulging muscles of his arms as he worked, or caressing his jaw with her eyes. She never would have said he was her type before, but what did that mean now? There wasn’t even a “her” anymore. She was just a liability, a prisoner already, biding out her time, getting ready to die. Shouldn’t she grab a hold of the one thing that felt like life until then?  


Three weeks left. Clarissa still couldn't cry. She was consumed with vivid fantasies about Amos whenever she was alone, even sometimes when she wasn’t. She rubbed herself raw and came with his name silently on her tongue every night. She knew it wasn’t love, she knew it was desperate fear and grief and loneliness and the need to feel some kind of connection, and she didn’t care. It was better than crying anyway.  


She thought of a million ways she might ask him to fuck her. But she couldn’t. Even though everyone was being so nice and polite and hospitable, she knew forgiveness could not extend that far, to so intimate an act. But neither could she let it go, and the idea of Amos turning to her, stripping her down and wrapping his big arms around her was driving her insane.  



	2. Chapter 2

The crew were all assembled on the ops deck, staring at their monitors in companionable silence, taking care of various projects. Amos had left their prisoner in the galley for the time being, and Holden was glad to be alone with his crew.

The prisoner. Clarissa Mao. Just the thought of her sitting in his ship ruined his moment of peace. She still made him nervous. And being nervous without anything to do about it made him cranky. Holden turned on the video feed of the galley. She was just sitting at the table they shared their meals at, back to the camera. He couldn’t see what she was doing with her hands. He let out a frustrated sigh. 

Naomi looked up from her station. “What is it, Jim?”

“How sure can we be that Mao isn’t still up to something?”

Amos grunted. “I’m pretty sure she’s not.”

Holden just looked at him, frustration apparent in his eyes.

“She talks about how bad she feels all the time, Cap. Which you’d know if you ever talked to her.”

Holden waved his hand dismissively, turned back to his terminal. “I’m going to check the feed from her bunk. She spends an awful lot of time in there.” The cabins on the Roci were not usually constantly recording video surveillance, but Holden had made sure it was set up for Mao’s room. She was a prisoner after all; he wasn’t sure why no one was really acting like that were true.

He found the file and started running it backwards at 10x speed. Empty room, Amos and Clarissa at the door, Clarissa getting dressed, Clarissa sleeping. No signs of sabotage or secret bomb-making so far. Clarissa tossing and turning in bed.

“Whoa!” Holden suddenly exclaimed, whipping his head away from the monitor, hand over his eyes and mouth pinched up in disgust. “Ok, Naomi, you’re going to have to be the one to review these tapes, actually,” he called in her direction, eyes still screwed shut.

Naomi let out and aggravated sigh. “What, you just realized you’re going to see a woman naked if you spy on her in her room?” She crossed over to his terminal, put one hand on his shoulder and bent over the monitor. The tiny Clarissa on the screen was sprawled naked over her crash couch, both hands thrust between her legs. Running at 10x speed and backwards, it was actually pretty comical. “Or that,” she said, bemused, and reached over to switch it off.

After a moment Amos raised his hand, staring intently at his own monitor. “Hey Naomi, don’t worry, I can take that job off your plate.”

“No!” Holden and Naomi both barked in unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm worried this scene messes with the mood I was establishing in Clarissa's internal monologue, but when it occurred to me I laughed too hard to leave it out._


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks left. Still no tears, but Clarissa was having a bad day. Masturbation was not cutting it. Her obsession with getting laid was destroying her ability to concentrate on the simplicity of the repair work that she had been finding so fulfilling. And yet she was paralyzed at the idea of approaching Amos. How to even start? “Hey, I know you’re probably still mad that I tried to destroy your crew and everything you care about, but can I take a ride on your dick?” She was out of her mind to want him. She was torturing herself. She had to stop.

Which was why she could not believe she had gotten herself into her current position, squeezed in the half-meter space behind the huge bulk of the air recycler with Amos breathing on her neck, everyone else far away and preoccupied up on the ops deck. She had asked him to come hold a piece of heavy siding out of the way while she swapped out a few parts underneath. She really did need the help, but it meant their bodies were only a sigh apart in the tiny accessway, Amos’ hips brushing the curve of her backside as his arms stretched past either side of her face. She kept fumbling with her tools, prolonging the sweet agony of the ordeal. She tried not to notice the heady, masculine scent of his skin, not to cherish the feeling of each small contact his body made with hers, some of the last human contact she might ever get… She almost dropped one of the tiny screws in her right hand.  


“You’re blushing,” Amos commented when she angled her head under the machine. “Are you thinking about sex, Peaches?” He punctuated with a teasing thrust of his hips right against her ass.  


Clarissa’s face flamed brighter. “Um…”  


Amos grinned. “Well shit, girl, I’ll fuck you right now, just say the word.”  


Clarissa wasn’t sure how her face stayed so hot and red when it seemed like all her blood had just rushed between her thighs. It couldn't be that easy. “Amos,” she began, her voice breaking on the word. She turned towards him, not sure what to say next.  


Apparently that counted as the right word, however. A moment after she met his eyes, Amos wrapped one hand around the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her into an enthusiastic kiss. She jumped as the panel he had been holding up for her banged shut behind her head. She spread her hands reverently over his broad chest, basking in the chance to find what his body really felt like. A moment later she heard the tinkling of three tiny screws bouncing across the deck, falling forgotten from her hands. Those were going to be a bitch to find later. Amos’ hands began roaming liberally over her body before coming around to tug on the zipper at the front of her jumpsuit.  
Clarissa felt like she wasn’t getting enough air, it was all happening so fast. She pulled back to catch her breath, banging into the machine behind her as Amos unwrapped her chest, spreading the ugly jumpsuit open to her navel, running his hands up her ribs and then plunging them into the neckline of her undershirt. He spilled her breasts out the top, bending to taste each nipple. “I just knew you had the sweetest little tits,” he said with heat, kneading and rolling the peaks with both hands.  


Suddenly he paused, drawing back enough to look into her fully-dilated eyes. “Did you actually want to do this now, as in right now?”  


Clarissa struggled to find the words to truly express herself. “I’m probably going to die,” she blurted. “Executed.” Amos nodded with something approximating sympathy, hands still loosely cupping her breasts. “Or I’ll be thrown in a cell for the rest of my life. Either way, I can’t imagine I’ll ever have sex again,” she concluded bitterly. “So now, later, I would love to be fucking pretty much continuously for the next two weeks,” she finished in a rush, challenge sparkling in her eyes.  


Amos paused for only a moment. “I’m good with that,” he said cheerfully, then peeled her jumpsuit down past her knees. Clarissa found her hands tearing at his zipper as well, weeks of repressed lust landsliding over concerns like grace or seductive foreplay. She felt a jolt as her hands landed on his ready cock, bulging at the fabric of his undershorts. He let out a soft moan and scraped his teeth over her earlobe. She shoved at his waistband and let his member spring free, her hands trailing gently over its velvety smoothness. She had always been in love with all that soft over all that hard.  


She realized Amos had now gotten her completely naked above the shins, where her borrowed workboots were stopping the fabric of her jumpsuit from falling any farther. Amos growled at the impediment and roughly pushed her to face the recycler they were still squeezed behind, which thankfully barred them from the surveillance cameras. She felt his hand plunge between her thighs, dragging lightly along the lips of her opening. She opened her legs as wide as the clothes pooled around her ankles would allow. She was already soaking wet. The big man grunted in satisfaction, and suddenly his cock was there, pressing for entrance. Clarissa pressed herself back over him slowly, eyes squeezed shut as she tried to memorize the sensation, his thick cock stretching her with a feeling even more amazing than she had imagined. Amos stayed still, letting her drag herself up and down over his length. He ran his hands slowly up the sides over her body. She felt tiny, and curvaceous, and beautiful. Then he drew her arms up, pinning both her hands against the machine in front of them. He grabbed her hip with the other, and started ramming his cock into her.  


Clarissa did her best to brace herself against his onslaught, but after a few minutes her cheek, then most of her naked chest were jammed up against the cold metal of the recycler. She was barely cognizant of the discomfort under the mind-bending orgasm she was building towards. Amos’ relentless pounding showed no sign of slowing, until she was screaming into her arm as the wave of pleasure broke over her.  


As she was shuddering her way down into normal brainwaves, Amos’ hand spasmed over hers, his rhythm changing to a few deep, sustained thrusts. It was the only sign he gave of his own release; then his body relaxed and he withdrew the hand pressing her into the machine. He pulled her back into his chest as he leaned back into the bulkhead behind them, wrapping his arms around her torso and letting out a contented sigh. His cock gave a few last twitches, still inside her.  


“Were you actually done with that repair?” he asked conversationally.

"...I think you're going to have to help me find a few screws." 


	4. Chapter 4

They never talked about what they were doing. Clarissa had no clue what to say, and Amos didn’t seem to feel the need to. The next day she working halfway under another machine when she felt Amos taking her boots off. “Um, what are you-“  


“Don’t move,” was all he said. Clarissa let her body relax. When her feet were free of the clunky footwear, he tugged at her jumpsuit. “Unzip.”  


Clarissa wriggled out of the top of the garment, lifted her hips so Amos could whip it the rest of the way off. These uniforms were horrible for sex, she thought idly, then lay there naked under the machine, waiting to see what the big man would do next.  


He ran his hands up her bare legs, giving her restraint cuff an affectionate pat on the way up. Clarissa smiled wryly at that, though he couldn’t see her face under the overhang of metal. When he reached her hips he paused, then one warm hand dragged over the sensitive skin between her legs.  


He didn’t spread her at first, content with stroking her outer lips and teasing the slit between them. She felt her nipples harden, arched her back against the cold floor. Two wet fingers appeared, slipping between her folds and stroking up and down her entrance. Clarissa tipped her hips up in need, but the slow strokes continued only to tease. He circled her clit, dropped down, the returned, until she was panting.  


There was a pause, then big hands were spreading her thighs wide. Amos’ tongue appeared where his fingers had been, replicating their patient rhythm. Clarissa lifted her head, looked down her body at him. His eyes were closed, enthralled in his work. She dropped her head back and moaned as he batted her clit back and forth with his tongue. She grabbed into the guts of the machine above her, bracing her upper body to stop herself from shoving her hips against his face. Her orgasm came barreling over them like an avalanche.  


Amos didn’t let up until she stopped twitching; then he grabbed under her thighs and pulled her out into the light. He was on his knees; his cock was throbbing and ready. He lifted her hips into the air, lined himself up and pressed. On the tail of such recent orgasm, it felt even better than last time; his insistent thickness forcing itself past slick and engorged tissues, the satisfying ache at the end of each thrust. She felt like something deep inside her was becoming undone as he fucked her, like all her molecules might fly apart at any moment. It was glorious. He came with a groan, pushing himself as deep inside her as he could. Then he lowered her to the ground, pressed his forehead into her cheek. “Damn, girl, I could get used to this.”

*****  


He was relentless. Clarissa considered telling him she hadn’t meant “fucking pretty much continuously” literally; he seemed to be doing his best to make that happen without letting the rest of the Roci know what was going on. As soon they were alone his hands would be on her, grasping, teasing, pushing and pulling her wherever he wanted her to be. Somehow they continued to get work done, and no one seemed to think anything had changed. Amos still unlocked her door every morning with a toolbelt and a coffee. But now he was unlocking her door after the others were asleep; Clarissa staring up at his silent silhouette against the hall light before spreading her legs in wordless invitation, consent for whatever he wanted to do to her this time.  


It became clear fairly quickly that Amos wasn’t just pity fucking her. He wasn’t getting romantic, but their constant crashing together seemed to be filling something deep in him as well. The intensity of his need surprised her, and while at times he was an attentive and giving lover, there were other times that she felt like no more than a piece of meat to him. Like he couldn’t always remember she might get tired or be capable of feeling pain. It didn’t bother her. When she surrendered it was almost soothing, to give in to him and just not be a person for a while. She knew if she asked him to stop, he would. It was never quite that bad. She welcomed all the ways he helped her feel things, here in her last days.  


When she was angry, about life and how she got here, she rode him hard. Eyes flashing, fingers curling into flesh, hungry cunt demanding more and more.  


When she was feeling frightened, she clung to him. Arms locked around his neck, face pressed into his chest. Their hips grinding out their coded message: you are not alone, you are not alone. His fingers buried in her hair: just try to take this girl from me, I dare you.  


When she was feeling trapped, she fought him. Fists flailing against his chest, hips bucking, teeth gritting, but never the swirls of her tongue at the roof of her mouth. His knee jammed between her legs, her arms forced above her head, sudden and inevitable penetration. She never won those fights. Never wanted to.  


And when the self-hate threatened to overwhelm her, she let Amos do some really fucked up things to her, and the feelings passed.  


She never cried.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: breath control (choking)

Three days left.  


“You know I’ll kill you, if you want.”  


She rolled over to look at him. They were sprawled out naked beside each other, on the floor of Amos’ cabin. He just let his words hang there, face calm and attentive.  


“I thought you were already trying to do that.” She knew he was serious, but maybe a half-hearted joke would give her brain time to actually engage the topic.  


Amos arched an eyebrow, not letting her off the hook.  


“I’m surprised I can walk when you’re done with me, most times.” She persisted in her tangent, mind still resisting the horror of the choice she could make. The rest of her life in some solitary hole in the ground, or death at the hands of her lover. Clarissa rolled onto her back, staring up at the bulkhead that was currently the ceiling. “I suppose it could be a pretty decent way to go out. Pinned down by your cock, your hands wrapped around my throat, the last thing I see is your face, coming hard…”  


“That’s pretty fucked up, Peaches.”  


She turned her face toward him, idly noting her words were working up another erection.  


“I was just gonna offer to put a bullet in your head when we got to Luna.”  


“I like my way better. Let’s practice.”  


Amos flashed a grin and rolled over on her. His partial erection pressed against her thigh, a promise for later. He held his upper body up over her, resting on one elbow. His right hand toyed with her tits for a moment as he stared down at her, face still and focused now. Then he slid his palm slowly up to her throat.  


He just let his hand rest there at first, the static weight of his arm applying the barest amount of pressure. Clarissa felt her consciousness begin to shift somehow, narrowing down to nothing but this moment and the shivering anticipation of the next. His fingers wrapped around the sides of her neck, and he watched her face closely as he squeezed gently, pushed down experimentally just under her jaw.  


It wasn’t enough to cut off her breathing, but the sense of threat was enough to raise her heart rate, her chest expanding in automatically deepened inhalations. She also felt an immediate response between her legs. He pushed harder, turning the sound of her breath into a weak, raspy thing that seemed impossibly loud. Then he relaxed his hand, let her catch her breath as he went back to playing with her nipples. The intensity of the adrenaline racing through her body made the sensation exquisitely erotic. His hand grasped her neck again, and he leaned his face very close to hers. “I like hearing you struggle,” he said in her ear, then pushed on her throat again.  


He let her suck in a few more labored breaths, then bore down and sealed her throat completely. The pressure bulged her eyes and mouth into unconscious, uncontrollable pleading. Then he released her, studying her face as she gasped for air. A smug smile twisted eyes lit up with arousal. This was clearly doing it for him. His hand crept down between her legs, and she responded instantly to his touch, moaning like a bitch in heat. Something about the cocktail of chemical changes he was inducing in her system was making everything feel really fucking good.  


His hand returned to her throat, clamped down eagerly as soon as he felt her finish her inhale. He ground his hips into hers and she eagerly bucked into him, her body nothing but aching clit and straining neck. He let her wait, let her wonder, then released his grip, touching her face almost reverently as he watched her pant for air. She was still grinding against him as he positioned his body more squarely over hers, throbbing erection rubbing between their bellies.  


He grasped her throat again, but did not apply pressure yet. The devilish grin of a man reveling in being in control lit up his face. “Do you want me to kill you?” he asked again, then squeezed. Clarissa tried to relax, to feel every sensation of the moment. His cock pressed hard against her slick opening, entrance undeniable. She felt like her nerve endings might burn out; the narrowed focus of her oxygen deprivation somehow heightening all the signals, threatening to overload her pleasure center.  


Again he showed mercy, releasing her airway and allowing her to stay conscious. He began fucking her in earnest, wild eyes still locked on hers, right hand still stroking her neck. Clarissa began panting for a different reason, a tsunami of an orgasm beginning to build. Amos was thrusting at just the right angle to compress her clit with every stroke, and the wave of pleasure was ready to break very quickly.  


Just as she drew a breath to scream out her orgasm, Amos clamped down again, sending the pleasure bouncing off the back of her brain, ricocheting around her body with no escape. She felt every muscle tighten, her vision fade to black. Amos moaned in her ear and bucked in a few more spasmed thrusts, then finally let go, rolling off of her so she could draw deep, shuddering breaths.  


They both just lay there a while, basking in the aftershocks and remembering who they even were. That had to be one of the most intensely erotic experiences she had ever had in her life.  


A few minutes later, Amos rolled to face her again. “Fuck, that was hot,” he said. “You’re ruining me for any other woman. And I was already pretty ruined.” He paused. “I’m gonna be really sad when you’re gone.”  


And finally, Clarissa’s tears came.


End file.
